SK Innovation, as promised, has started construction of its second lithium-ion battery cell factory in the U.S., which was designed for 11.7 GWh annually (starting in 2023).
The first 9.8 GWh factory, at the same site in Commerce, Jackson County, Georgia, has been under construction since March 2019 and will start production in 2022. The combined output to be 21.5 GWh annually.
Within several years, SK Innovation intends to reach a manufacturing capacity of 100 GWh of electric vehicle batteries per year.
We know that the South Korean company will supply new Volkswagen models, including MEB-based all-electric cars. Probably starting with the U.S. made Volkswagen ID.4.
According to The Elec article, another major customer might be Ford, which could use SK Innovation cells in its all-electric pickup. Ford is also using LG Chem batteries.
General Motors is not only using LG Chem batteries, but even has started a joint venture factory project, which excludes it from the SK Innovation’s customer group for at least some time.
Tesla, as the biggest EV manufacturer in the country and globally, is in the U.S. using Panasonic cells, produced on Nevada at the Gigafactory 3 or imported from Japan (for Model S/Model X).
It will be interesting to see if also CATL or even BYD will come to the U.S. at some point in the future with their lithium-tech, both the high-energy dense cells as well as the LFP chemistry in cell-to-pack (CTP) approach.